"(AVENTINE HILL; THE PORTA LAVERNALIS LOCATED HERE WAS NAMED FOR LAVERNA)"

"AMONG THE GODS OR SPIRITS WHO WERE OF ANCIENT TIMES--MAY THEY BE EVER FAVOURABLE TO US! AMONG THEM WAS ONE FEMALE WHO WAS THE CRAFTIEST AND MOST KNAVISH OF THEM ALL. SHE WAS CALLED LAVERNA. SHE WAS A THIEF, AND VERY LITTLE KNOWN TO THE OTHER DEITIES, WHO WERE HONEST AND DIGNIFIED, FOR SHE WAS RARELY IN HEAVEN OR IN THE COUNTRY OF THE FAIRIES."

"SHE WAS ALMOST ALWAYS ON EARTH, AMONG THIEVES, PICKPOCKETS AND PANDERS--SHE LIVED IN DARKNESS."--VIRGIL

LAVERNA IS THE ROMAN GODDESS OF THIEVES, PICKPOCKETS, SHOPKEEPERS, RASCALS, AND HYPOCRITES. SHE WAS ORIGINALLY AN UNDERWORLD GODDESS OF THE ETRUCIANS, BUT BECAME THE GODDESS OF THIEVES BECAUSE THIEVES OPERATE IN THE DARK OF NIGHT. THERE WAS A TEMPLE IN A SACRED GROVE WHICH WAS NAMED FOR HER, AND THIS IS WHERE THE ROBBERS WOULD COME TO DIVVY UP THEIR LOOT. NEARBY THERE WAS AN ALTAR. THERE WAS A STATUE OF THE GODDESS AND HER IMAGE WHICH, ACCORDING TO SOME WAS A HEAD WITHOUT A BODY; OTHERS SAY SHE WAS A BODY WITHOUT A HEAD.

LAVERNA WAS WORSHIPPED IN SILENCE AND WAS PROPITIATED WITH BY LIBATIONS POURED WITH THE LEFT HAND. IT IS SAID THAT LAVERNA HAD MANY LOVERS AND MANY CHILDREN, AND ALTHOUGH SHE OFTEN REPENTED HER LIFE OF SIN, SHE COULD NOT REFORM; HER PASSIONS WERE FAR TOO STRONG.

'Behold me, for I am Laverna, whoHave come to answer to that Lord's complaint,Who swears that I contracted debt to him,And have not paid although the time is o'er,And that I am a thief because I sworeUpon my head--but, as you all can see,I have no head at all, and therefore IAssuredly ne'er swore by such an oath.'

* In Liber AL, there are some Egyptian names that look funny. What's the deal?

Crowley, it seems, tried as much as possible to use the original Egyptian pronunciations of divine names, rather than use their popular Greek corruptions. Some of these (e.g. Hadit) have since been revised in the light of better knowledge of Egyptian, but his attempt was in general a good one.

* Was there any Egyptian gematria?

Put simply, no. If there was a standard order used by the Egyptians for their alphabet, it has been lost. And unlike Hebrew, but like English, the symbols used to express numbers in Ancient Egyptian were not used for letters.

However, since the phonetics of Egyptian closely parallel Hebrew, it is possible to transliterate Egyptian names and phrases into the Hebrew alphabet for gematric computations much more readily than English.

* What's the deal with all these 'hyphenated' gods like Amen-Ra, Ra-Hoor-Khuit, Ptah-Seker-Ausar, etc.?

Most hyphenated gods' names are explained thusly:

In ancient Egypt, different cities often had completely different conceptions of cosmology. As the influence of a city grew, so often did the influence of its mythos. It became necessary to reconcile different gods who served similar roles, and so the priests took the enlightened viewpoint that the "gods" were merely one entity manifesting under different names and/or forms. The one entity was referred to by a compound name, such as Amen-Ra or Ptah-Seker-Ausar.

However, some hyphenated gods' names are merely hyphenated to make them easier to read, for example, Her-nedj-tef-f, from the Egyptian words Her "Horus", nedj "avenger", tef "father", and -f "his", thus "Horus, the avenger of his father."

In the case of Ra-Hoor-Khuit, we have both explanations in force: Ra "Ra", Hoor "Horus", khuit "of the horizons", thus "Ra, who is like Horus of the Horizons".